Peter and Lisa from Winnipeg
Five years ago, my Prince Charming came knocking on my door. Peter was from Sweden, but was in Winnipeg attending the University of Manitoba on a student visa. He came to my house to see a room I had for rent.

He moved in the following weekend, and we lived together for eight months as roommates, quickly becoming the best of friends. We then made the effortless transition from being roommates to being a couple, and continued to live together for another year and a half.

Peter proposed on February 10, 2003, while we were on vacation in the Dominican Republic. We married on September 4, 2004, and just had our first child!

Lessons learned: Love really can come knocking on your door, and you really can marry your best friend. It happened to us!!

Gwen and Borden from Winnipeg
The phone rang one evening. It was a woman I (Gwen) casually knew. After the customary hellos and how are yous, she asked if I was seeing anyone. Warning bells began clanging in my brain.

“Because I have this brother,” she went on, as the warning bells crescendoed. I had just survived a very bad blind date and was still nursing my pride back to health. But after my friend assuaged my fears with very complimentary words about her older brother, Borden, I agreed to give it a go.

That weekend, Borden and I met at a restaurant downtown. Once seated, I suggested that we set aside all expectations and stress. He agreed, and we had a great seven-hour conversation.

But my guard was still up, and I was hesitant to commit to another date. Thankfully Borden persisted, and we did have a second dinner. It was spectacular! Conversation never lagged, and my defense system quickly shut down. We spent a lot of time together, and I began to forget that I had only known this man for a few weeks.

During one family get together (yes, we met each other’s families right away), Borden’s cousin ribbed him about getting married. Afterwards, in my apartment, the subject came up of where we thought this relationship was going.

“I know where I’d like to see it go. I could sum it up in one word,” Borden said. I playfully pressed for details, and he replied that his one word began with an m. Yes, we were both thinking marriage already and had only known each other for three weeks!

Eleven months later, we married on October 9, 2004, and life has been an amazing ride ever since.

Maulin and Anju Gandhi from Montréal
During the final year of my undergraduate studies at McGill University, I (Anju) became VP of administration for the Hindu Students’ Association, not realizing that I would be working with my future husband. During this period, Maulin (who was VP of operations) and I would only discuss issues relevant to the club. But one night, I called his sister—an acquaintance of mine from school—for help on an event I was planning. Maulin answered the phone, and we ended up chatting for more than an hour. It was extremely easy to talk to him since he would listen attentively and provide incredible advice.

That summer, we both took summer courses at school, which would change our lives completely. I didn’t realize that he liked me at first, even though he would frequently show up in the computer labs where I was working and offer to help with my projects. Then we would go for walks or get ice cream, telling stories and jokes. His presence, laughter and joy would fill the time we spent together.

Slowly, a kind of magic encircled us, and before we knew it, we were in love. As the years passed, we both realized that we had found our soulmate, and we finally decided to get married. We married on July 9, 2005. Now our life feels like a fairy tale filled with true happiness and love.

Nikki and Wilf from Vernon, B.C.
I (Nikki) was just coming out of a long-term relationship, and began playing for a local beach volleyball league. We played against Wilf’s team a few times. He was so energetic and friendly, not to mention incredibly hot!

A few weeks later, my friends on my volleyball team invited Wilf to join us for drinks after the game one evening. It was then that we had our first conversation. Wilf had a new wallet, and I showed him how to organize all his cards in it. We connected that evening, and I was definitely interested in seeing more of this guy.

Wilf was involved in the local amateur radio club and he invited our team out to watch one of his club’s experiments. They were going to launch a weather balloon into the sky with a monitoring device (radio) and camera attached to it in a small styrofoam cooler. I showed up just before the launch, and Wilf was very excited to show me how everything worked in the package. While he showed me how all the gadgets hooked together with many wires, he shorted the board and some of the components and let the smoke out! After some minor alterations, the balloon launch was successful, and the camera took some amazing photos that captured the curvature of the earth from its highest vantage point.

Wilf directed me to a website where the photos would be downloaded. On this site, there was a link to his home page, where I learned a little more about him. We started talking online in a chat room and met up again after a volleyball game. This all happened just three short weeks prior to my moving from Vernon to Calgary for school. We stayed in touch and talked every night on the phone. We were able to see each other about two or three times a month.

When a law firm in Vernon offered me a position after graduation, I gladly accepted. Wilf and I have been together for six years now. He proposed at Niagara Falls in September 2003. We married in September 2004 at a resort in Vernon. We’re still playing volleyball together and enjoying every minute of life!

Jennifer and Christian from Kanata, Ont.
Christian and I (Jennifer) were both in Grade 10 at Holy Trinity High School in Kanata when I saw him in the gym. I told my friend I thought he was cute, and that I wanted to date him. She told him, and he asked me out on a date.

We went to see Home Alone 2, and he asked me to “go out with him.” We were together for seven years, and then we took a two-year break where we talked off and on. But he was working, and I was in college, and we didn’t have time to see each other. Two years later, we met up again at a mutual friend’s birthday party.

We both walked into the house at the same time as our high school song came on the radio—“Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica! We looked at each other and knew we were meant to be. From that day on, we have been together. We danced our first dance as a married couple to “Nothing Else Matters,” and had our son, Ryleigh,
a year later.

Nothing could be more perfect than our marriage!

Jennifer and Rob from Richmond, B.C.
After 10 years in the military in England, I (Jennifer) decided to go and work in Bermuda for an investment management company in 2001. A friend introduced me to Rob, a chartered accountant who was also a guest worker. Rob lived on a boat at the time, and I soon moved on-board with him. About four months after we met, we took a trip together to meet both families (mine in England, his in Regina) and we had a great time.

The following year, my work permit was not renewed so we had to leave Bermuda. After a few months of travelling in Europe, we came to Vancouver in May 2003. Rob quickly found a job in Richmond, and we decided to buy a town house in nearby Steveston, a lovely fishing village on the Fraser river.

On New Year’s Eve 2004, we got married on a boat in Vancouver surrounded by our friends and family from all around the world. Soon after, I decided to go back to school. The day before classes started in September, I discovered I was pregnant! Our first baby is due in April—hopefully after my exams have finished!

Rick and Claudia from Toronto
Before we met, Rick was a single Canadian guy living in Toronto. I was a divorced Panamanian gal sharing my life with a chihuahua dictator named Fidel. That is, until one lazy Sunday in March 2003, when two very different people from two different countries happened to sign into the same online game room for canasta.

We clicked instantly and became game buddies, spending more and more time together online. About six weeks later, I had to travel to Rome from Panama to visit my sister and her new baby. I joked with Rick about him coming to meet me there. He said he would, but I didn’t think he was serious.

A few days before my departing date, he emailed me a scanned copy of his tickets. He was going to Rome too! We like to joke now about how we were both worried about meeting a complete stranger in a strange country—possibly even a serial killer!—but we knew from the beginning that we were doing the right thing. It just felt right!

Needless to say, we met and were never apart for the rest of that marvellous week. After a year of meeting in several countries while fighting the Canadian government to get my visa approved, we are here in Toronto, happily married. (We got hitched in June 2004.)

Hey, I would do it all over again a thousand times!

Richard and Lyin from Victoria, B.C.
In July 2004, I (Lyin) suddenly found my Saturday evenings free from work. Not ever having had Saturday nights free, I was at a bit of a loss for something to do. My mom suggested that we go for a drink at a local bar.

While we were there, she started talking to some ladies at the next table. To amuse myself, I turned to the table to my right, where a guy named Richard was sitting with his buddy. We got to talking, and when my mom wanted to go home, I said I would see her later. I went to another bar with Richard—without his buddy. The next day, we saw each other again.

Four days later, I quit one of my jobs to spend more time with Richard. (I hated that job anyway.) A few days after our date, I read in a horoscope that marriage was in the air for Aries—and it was! Eleven days after we met, we got engaged. And only two weeks after that, we moved in together. We married on September 24 of that same year!

DID YOU KNOW... 33.6% of Canadians met their current or last significant other through friends, 18.7% through work, 17.2% by chance, 15.1% at a party, bar or club, and 2.7% online.

Chris and Kory-Anne from Victoria, B.C.
In the spring of 2000, I (Kory-Anne) was a single mother in Ladysmith, on Vancouver Island, looking for people with the same interests as me. I joined an internet dating club, where I came across a guy named Chris, who would end up being the man of my dreams.

I had just returned from a trip to Whitehorse when Chris called me up and said he was on his way to Ladysmith. (He lived in Victoria.) He suggested that we meet up. I was thrown off a little as that meant I had to find a babysitter for my little girl. I did manage to find one, so Chris and I met up. We spent five hours together that night on the beach, and two months after that I moved in with him in Victoria.

A year later, we found out we were expecting our first child, making my little girl, Heather, a big sister. Heather started calling Chris daddy. A year after our daughter, Tiffany, was born, Chris proposed to me. It happened on October 14, 2003, at the intersection that leads to our house, with both girls in the back seat. We were married on May 29, 2004.

In all my dreams, I never thought I would meet a man as caring and loving as Chris. And to take on a child that was not his own like he did was the best gift I could have ever been given.

Jarka and Darrell from Kitchener, Ont.
Darrell and I (Jarka) were online dominoes partners in 2004, and after talking and playing together for a while, we exchanged photos and phone numbers. I was doing my finals in medical office administration in Kingsville, Ont., and Darrell was in his last months of accounting exams in Windsor, Ont. Darrell decided to call me and ask me out on a date.

I was already going to the movies in Windsor with a few friends, and I told him that he was more than welcome to come and join us. He thought it was a wonderful idea. This was our first meeting face-to-face. As I was walking to the cinemas, I saw a tall, handsome, blue-eyed guy waiting outside the movies smiling. I knew right there and then that he was the one.

Only one other friend of mine ended up tagging along with us. Not even five minutes into the movie, Darrell started holding my hand. After the movie, I gave my friend a ride home (who lived 45 minutes away from the movie theatre). I asked Darrell to come along because I didn’t want this date to end just like that. He agreed. After dropping my friend off, we drove another 45 minutes back to Windsor and went for a walk along the river. Our personalities clicked so well that before we knew it, it was 5 a.m.! We sealed the night with a kiss.

Darrell and I were engaged on Canada Day in 2005, and now we’re getting married this September.

Kris and Sophia from Calgary
I (Sophia) and Kris met in a ballroom dance class in Calgary in September 1997. Kris later told me that when he saw me across the room, he was instantly attracted to me. He tried to get to know me better during the six months of classes. Before class, he would ask me to warm up with him by dancing a song or two. During class, he would seek me out as a dance partner whenever he could. At dance parties, he would find further opportunities to dance with me.

Toward the end of our six months of classes, in March 1998, Kris asked me out to the dance club’s year end semi-formal party. I was surprised and happy that he did, as I had thought of him as a great guy and wonderful dance partner, but never expected him to ask me out!

The following week, however, he had to cancel due to a sailing exam he was required to do out on the West Coast. I was disappointed. Then he asked if I wouldn’t mind going to the opera with him that weekend instead. I said yes.

We have been enjoying the opera, ballroom dancing and each other’s company ever since. We married on October 12, 2003.

We want to hear more of your love stories. Email feedback@2magazine.com with the subject line “How we met!” (Send along your pics too!) Your story may appear in a future issue.